Would
it kill you to smile? (l-r) Mike Valente, Sean Green,
Rich Roberts and Rory O’Brien of Brick by Brick.

photo:Joe Putrock

Trigger
HeavyBy
Bill Ketzer

With
help from his booking connections with Hudson Duster,
Mike Valente and Brick by Brick pound out their own definition
of hardcore—and find plenty of places to play it

Mike Valente knows a thing or two about hardcore. As owner
or Troy’s Hudson Duster, it could be argued that he has
breathed new life into the genre in the Capital Region.
But while some would be content to sit tight, keep the
liquor tab paid and enjoy a rewarding (albeit sometimes
controversial) investment, Valente felt he had unfinished
business. The demise of his local brawlers the Bruise
Brothers left a bad taste in his mouth, so one night in
2004 he looked around his nightclub for a new hope and
a new direction. Fifteen minutes later, he found both.

“The
Bruise Brothers had signed a deal with a management company,
and it totally changed the band,” he recalls. “It just
wasn’t anything even remotely close to what we were trying
to do in the beginning. And I discovered something: I
hate radio rock. That’s what they wanted us to be,
and I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ ”

So the guitarist walked over to Rory O’Brien, fresh out
of metalcore band .357 Justice, to gauge his interest
in starting something new. “I knew he was a good drummer,
so we started talking about influences, and we found we
were both into bands like Sick of It All and Agnostic
Front. Then we grabbed Sean, who was sitting down at the
other end of the bar.”

“A
random night at the Duster,” bassist Sean Green says of
the night they formed Brick by Brick. “It just clicked.
Before we even looked for a singer we nailed down a bunch
of songs, and then Kevin from Wasteform turned us on to
Rich.”

For the trio of fast friends, Rich Roberts—a brooding,
growling powerhouse with no reservations about stepping
into the spotlight—was a no-brainer. “I took their songs
home, learned them, added my lyrics, came back with my
PA and sang, and they said, ‘You can just leave your stuff
here,’” he says.

“The
classic ‘you-got-a-PA-so-you-can-stay’ trick,” says Green,
his laughter contagious and almost startling for a guy
whose band offers up such pleasant ditties as “Fuckmouth”
and “Tearing Down” at oxygen-depleting volumes. “I had
just started another project, but I’m so lazy, I didn’t
want to carry my gear back and forth, so finally I just
said, ‘Fuck it, I’m leaving it here.’ ”

“So
due to laziness we ended up with Sean on bass,” says Valente.
“But seriously, it clicked in a big way, and it still
clicks. We write quickly. The formula works for us.” It
worked so well that after only a few short months together,
the first Brick By Brick full-length CD, Pull the Trigger,
was released despite a few minor setbacks.

“We
had a CD-release party in November 2004,” Green remembers.
“But as usual the CDs [didn’t] show up. We advertised
that the first 200 at the door got free CDs, but we only
wound up with 200 total at the show.”

“The
guy that was pressing them works for Sony,” Valente explains.
“Our release date was right at the beginning of the fourth
quarter, which is the busiest time of year for the recording
industry, so somehow our stuff got mixed up with Justin
Timberlake’s! Some poor bastard in an Indiana distribution
house was like, ‘What the fuck?’ ”

Back home, the band began grabbing up opening slots for
major acts like Anthrax, 25 Ta Life and Murphy’s Law.
And as owner of one of the area’s few hardcore-metal clubs,
Valente found himself in a position to negotiate a lot
of work for the Troy foursome, offering shows in the Collar
City in return for shows anywhere from Rhode Island to
Nantucket.

“Hell
yeah, it has certainly worked out well,” he says. “If
I give a band a show here, I book at least one for us
out of town every time. That’s how this works, how else
can you do it really?”

But Nantucket?

“That
was different,” O’Brien says. “My girlfriend’s sister.
. . . Her boyfriend lives out on the island. I was out
there in July and I brought a bunch of CDs with me. Why
not? Sure enough, a guy on MySpace contacted us through
Murderer’s Row, who are coming with us, and that was that.”

At this point Green expresses his relief over missing
said show due to a prior commitment (Joe Keyser from Skinless
will be filling his shoes). “I’m just glad I don’t have
to take the two-hour boat ride,” he says. “I hate boats.”

“Aww,
you’re a bad boat guy?” Valente asks in mock baby-talk.

“Boats
and planes,” comes the reply, and Green draws a finger
across his neck. “I’m like Mr. T, you have to knock me
out before you put me on a plane.”

So it will be cars and U-Hauls come spring when Brick
by Brick hit both coasts with SubZero and San Francisco’s
Sangra Eterna, a new project assembled by former Machine
Head/Testament drummer Chris Contos. This will mark the
first time Brick By Brick have played the West Coast,
taking advantage of distribution they enjoy after contributing
tracks to compilations released on western labels. “We
got a song on a good comp from a Texas label called 8-Piece
Records,” Valente says. “It’s called Burned in Baghdad,
and that’s something where all the proceeds are sent to
support the troops overseas. We have another on Lineup
Records out of Arizona with Harley’s War, 25 Ta Life and
Northside Kings. Back east we have a song on a compilation
from Jamie Jasta’s Stillborn label. We have a lot of friends
on that comp, there’s some great shit on it. . . . Unreleased
Hatebreed material, Full Blown Chaos, Icepick, Danny Diablo,
Scurvy . . . just a lot of good hardcore.”

Once home, the studio beckons again. Last August, the
outfit recorded new material with renowned hardcore producer-
engineer Don Fury at Cyclone Sound in New York City for
a potential split CD with Long Island’s Neglect. Since
that time, however, Neglect found themselves in the market
for a new label and a full-length CD, so Brick by Brick
plan to hammer out a slew of new tunes locally, adding
to the Fury sessions for another full-length of their
own.

“Fury
has done them all,” Valente says. “Sick of It All, Agnostic
Front, Madball, Helmet, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today
. . . basically every big hardcore band of the late ’80s
and early ’90s. It was a workout.”

“He
made us work hard. . . . I worked my ass off,” Green says.
“He wouldn’t settle for something we would settle for,
which was great. If he thought it could be laid down better,
tighter, he sent us back to do it. It was a great experience.”

One song from the sessions, “Toe to Toe,” recently was
singled out for the band’s first video. “It’s a cool video,”
says Green. “Mastodon Media did it, Rich Flavin and Jim
Fresh. It has a good storyline, not just us playing live.
The only disappointment was that we had shot some killer
live footage here at the Duster and it never got used.
It just didn’t jibe with what we had planned.”

“Like
with Cyclone though, it was nice to have a point of view
outside the band looking in,” Valente adds. “Because if
we did it the way we wanted it probably wouldn’t have
been half as good.”

Green concurs. “Oh, just cheesy. All of us standing in
front of a brick wall dancing or something.” But one thing
they do for themselves is work hard and keep a realistic
eye toward the future. Their working-class upbringing
has given them both conviction and a strong sense of practicality.

“I
don’t think anyone is ever able to quit [a] job while
playing hardcore,” Roberts claims. “I think Hatebreed
filled that niche. It’s great where they went.”

“I
used to watch them when they played around here in the
clubs,” adds Green. “When I was in Straight Jacket they’d
open up for us, we’d open for them. Now they’re just huge.
It’s cool to see where they got playing the music they’re
playing. They never changed.”

But what has changed is the definition of hardcore. The
inevitable hand of commerce has finally snatched up what
was once a purely street-level phenomenon, something the
band members view with a cross between amusement and mild
disgust. “Last time we played in Massachusetts, we told
the guy who booked us we were a hardcore band,” Green
recalls. “Then we went out and played, and he said, ‘You
should start booking yourselves as a metal band, because
the hardcore definition has changed.’ Now hardcore is
guys wearing their sister’s pants with the hair, the eyeliner
and the nail polish. Bands with sentences for names. The
Hot Topic hardcore.”

“You
worry about that because everyone has their own definition
now,” says Roberts. But what happened to those traditions,
to classic New York City hardcore, the street-tough, unassailable
penchant for redemption through brotherhood and brutality
that propelled bands like Hatebreed to the top of the
genre?

“It’s
still here,” Roberts says. “As long as people have shitty
lives, it will be here. Hardcore attracts people with
shitty lives. That’s pretty much what it’s about.”

“I
listen to the radio, and all I hear is that stupid Nickelback
song about driving and getting a blow job,” Valente says.
“You’re not gonna hear about that in our songs.”

“.
. . and how you want to kill her,” adds Roberts as everyone
breaks up. “Maybe we’d write something like that, but
either way you’re gonna hear a big difference in lyrical
content.”

O’Brien claims that it boils down to representing the
trials they’ve been through in life, what is witnessed
from day to day. “This has always been a way to vent things
out,” he says. “It’s a release. No matter how hard a week
we’ve had, we go downstairs and do our thing, and we all
leave smiling. It’s always a good vibe. You can leave
it there instead of taking it with you into life.”

“Even
without the lyrics, the music is just so heavy,”
says Green. “You can’t help but feel better.”

“If
I didn’t have a guitar, I’d have a gun,” Valente says.
“It really provides a balance for me, truly. We had a
bad end to 2005, so you can expect these new songs to
be brutal. They’ll tell what happened. Deaths, broken
bones, drunken wrestling, spilled beer . . .”

“We
get our frustrations out through music rather than through
crime or drugs,” says Roberts. “That and watching 200
kids kicking ass to something you’ve created. Pretty good
feeling.”

Brick by Brick’s new CD is tentatively scheduled for release
in late spring 2006. For more information on the band,
visit myspace.com/brickbybrick or myspace.com/hudsonduster.

ROUGH
MIX

PARTY
FOR THE CAUSE On Saturday (Feb. 25), do your
part to support artists from still-recovering
Katrina-ravaged New Orleans by attending a Mardi
Gras benefit party, called Compassion,
held by Pittsfield, Mass.-based arts collective
the Storefront Artist Project. According
to SAP press, they are working to “bring New Orleans
artists to Pittsfield this summer to reinvigorate
their artistic hearts and souls.” Donations collected
will directly benefit this specific goal. The
benefit will feature fun treats like Southern-style
fare catered by Ruth Bronz and Jennie
Fink; American roots musician and New Orleans
native Chip Wilson, with Jeff Haynes
of Pat Metheny Group; and Sean Harkness
of Windham Hill Recordings. After dark, three
New York City DJs (Blockhead, Ninjatune,
and funk-soul DJ L-Train) will provide
the soundtrack for a dance party. The party will
take place at the Howard Building (124-126 Fenn
St., Pittsfield, Mass.). Tickets are $25 at the
door starting at 7:30 PM; admission reduces to
$10 after 10 PM. SAP are enlisting the help of
volunteers for the event. If you’re interested
in volunteering, call Maggie at (413) 441-5981.
For more information on this benefit and the SAP,
visit storefrontartist.com.

IT’S
A HOLIDAY! (WE’RE GONNA HAVE A CELEBRATION)
Longtime area favorites Super 400 will
celebrate 10 whole years of making music together
this Saturday (Feb. 25) at 10 PM at the Ale House
(680 River St.) in Troy. That’s right, it was
in February 1996 that the group jammed in an old
warehouse on River Street in Troy and pretty much
instantaneously became a band. Since then, they’ve
played as a trio throughout the decade, in addition
to doing session work and side projects with other
artists here and there. They’ve released critically
acclaimed albums and rocked out at hundreds of
shows. And if that’s not enough, here’s the mark
of success: Troy mayor Harry Tutunjian
has proclaimed that Feb. 25 will be Super 400
Day in Troy to honor the band for their decade
of contributions to the music and arts communities.
According to band press, Mayor Tutunjian “is proud
of his hometown and likes to recognize the achievements
of other native sons and daughters.” Ronni James
of the Tech Valley Times once wrote, “Simply
put, Super 400 has zeroed in on the lost art of
the rock & roll power trio, and mastered it
in the process.” Congratulations to Kenny Hohman,
Lori Friday and Joe Daley of Super 400 on 10 years
of rock & roll. For more information on Super
400, visit super400.com.

TWO
FOR THE PRICE OF, WELL, TWO Area alt-rocker
Joe Nacco will celebrate the release of
his fourth album in three years, Requiem
for Civilization, with not one, but two
CD-release parties at Valentine’s (17 New Scotland
Ave., Albany)—one solo and one with a full band.
Nacco says that his purpose for doing this is
so audiences can experience two versions of the
album. The full band show will be on Friday, March
3 ($5); the solo show will be on March 10 ($3).
The first 25 people in the door for each show
will receive a free copy of the disc. For more
information on Joe Nacco, visit joenacco.com.

LIGHTS
. . . CAMERA . . . ACTION ACTION! Swedish
band the Sounds have confirmed a 40-date North
American tour (including a stop at this year’s
SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas) after a successful
tour of Scandinavia. The tour will coincide with
the release of their new album, Dying to Say
This to You, coming out March 21 on Scratchie/New
Line Records. Now what, you may be asking yourself,
does this have to do with local music? Well, it
just so happens that a band from Long Island called
Action Action will be a support band for
the entire tour (along with New York City alt-rockers
Morningwood), and a couple of the Action Action
boys—Clarke Foley and Adam Manning,
to be specific—were in the locally successful
pop-punk band Count the Stars. You remember
them, don’t you? After Count the Stars got signed
to Victory Records, the band soon fizzled, and
Foley and Manning joined Mark Thomas Kluepfel
and Danny Leo to form Action Action in 2004. The
band’s debut release on Victory, Don’t Cut
Your Fabric to This Year’s Fashion, sold more
than 50,000 records, and the boys just followed
it up with their sophomore album, An Army of
Shapes Between Wars, which was released in
January. So it looks like our hometown boys are
on the rise, and we wish them luck on their big
upcoming tour. For more information on Action
Action, visit action-action.com. MARCHING TO
THE BEAT OF A DIFFERENT DRUMMER Pittsfield,
Mass.-based pop princes Hector on Stilts
have inducted a new drummer into their lineup:
none other than Albany’s (and Metroland’s)
own John Brodeur. Brodeur (of the Suggestions
and Five Alpha Beatdown) has replaced previous
drummer Jay Schultheis. Catch the new HOS lineup
at their next local show at the Skyline (90 N.
Pearl St., Albany) on March 16 before they embark
on a tour that will involve a cross-country trip
to venues in cities like Hollywood and Tucson.
In other news, Hector on Stilts are actively seeking
Hecterns (ahem, interns) to help with all the
work it takes to keep a band going. To learn more
about HOS and available Hecternships, visit hectoronstilts.com.